In the 1970s, Kohl was a timekeeper for BDB (German Professional Boxing Association). In 1984 he promoted his first card featuring the Rocchigiani brothers (Ralf and Graciano) in Hamburg. The card was not a financial success so he stopped promoting and worked as vice president and president of the BDB (1984-89) and vice president of the European Boxing Union (1987-1990). He returned to promoting in the late 1980s under the Universum Box-Promotion banner and would go on to promote nearly 300 events and more than 2,100 bouts, including 250 plus title bouts. Kohl also operated Universum gyms in Hamburg and Berlin staffed by world class trainers. Among the 37 world champions Kohl promoted include Dariusz “Tiger” Michalczewski, Wladimir and Vitali Klitschko, Felix Sturm, Artur Grigorian, Firat Arslan, Zsolt Erdei, Juergen Braehmer, Marcos Maidana, Ruslan Chagaev, Juan Carlos Gomez and Regina Halmich. Universum promotions took place in over 40 German cities and countries such as Hungary, Austria, Poland, Ukraine, Switzerland, Croatia and the United States. The ZDF television network brought 109 Universum fight nights to fans for eight years in what many consider the golden era in German televised boxing.